MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is hailing recent marriage equality rulings as a "revolution happening in the federal courts" at "lightning speed."

On her Friday episode, Maddow hosted Kenji Yoshino, a constitutional law professor at New York University (and former Advocate contributor), who discussed the importance of recent pro-equality decisions in Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Utah.

Yoshino noted that last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Windsor v. United States, which made it possible for the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages, left it to the lower courts to suss out "whether it was a states' power decision or whether it was a gay rights decision." The rulings of the past few months, Yoshino told Maddow, indicate that the lower courts are interpreting Windsor as a gay rights case.

"Now, the decisions are piling up and accumulating in a way that ... is very, very powerful, in terms of how this case is going to be teed up for the ultimate decision by the United States Supreme Court," Yoshino predicted.